Happenstance
by Taliya
Summary: When a grievously injured Kudou Shinichi is wheeled into emergency surgery, renowned surgeon and retired phantom thief Kuroba Kaito was definitely not expecting to recognize his patient post-op—and vice versa. Future fic. Platonic Kaito-Shinichi. Rated for language.


Detective Conan and Magic Kaito characters, settings, and ideas do not belong to me but to Aoyama Gōshō.

* * *

Happenstance

By Taliya

* * *

 _Kuroba-sensei, fifth floor OR._

Kuroba Kaito glanced down from the charts and x-ray films before him, filled with the details of the patient before him, Hitachi Naoko, and her mother, Hitachi Nadeshiko, to the buzzing pager clipped to his belt. "My apologies," he said as he stood from his desk and bowed contritely, "I'm going to have to reschedule our meeting. I've been called in for emergency surgery."

The middle-aged woman stood gracefully from the visitor's chair with her daughter. "No no," she replied with a shake of her head, "I understand."

Kaito smiled softly. "Please talk to Yoshida-san at the reception desk and she will help with rescheduling a visit," he said as he exited the office behind her and followed to the reception desk. Briskly he informed the assistant that he had been called into the OR and to reschedule his patient for a later visit. That done, he made quick work of transiting from his tenth-floor consultation office in the First Beika Medical Plaza Building to Beika General Hospital. The buildings were connected by a sky bridge on the third floor, and the doctor hurried towards the operating room.

Kuroba Kaito, now thirty-five years of age, was an accomplished pediatric cardiothoracic surgeon specialist who had completed his residency and fellowship at Beika General before being hired on as a fully-fledged surgeon. A prodigy in his field, the young doctor had been accepted to Touto University's medical program immediately upon graduating from Ekoda High School. Kaito was known to be up-to-date on the cutting edge of the latest developments in medical research regarding surgery techniques and technology, as he performed his own research during his time outside his office and the operating room and guest lectured at universities throughout Japan. His own instructors had marveled at the dexterity of his hands during procedures, for not only were his hands steady, they were exceptionally nimble as well. His operation times were documented to be on average fifteen percent shorter than the next cardiothoracic surgeon. This feat was due to the fact that once upon a time, Kaito had covertly flown in the skies as the internationally wanted magician-phantom thief known as Kaitou 1412, later nicknamed Kaitou KID.

Five years after he had picked up Kuroba Touichi's mantle as the gentleman thief, Kaito had finally found the fabled Pandora, the gem that had cost his father his life. He had brought Snake's Organization to light, destroyed the doublet that was said to grant immortality, and hung up the KID outfit for good. To this day, Kaito lived in his childhood home, unwilling to leave the place that housed Kaitou KID's workroom. Until he figured out a way to disassemble it and take out all the equipment without anyone the wiser, there was no safe method of allowing strangers to live there. The fact that there was no need to pay rent was a bonus, as his parents had long ago paid off the mortgage.

As it stood he lived alone in the house, his mother having found another man to date. Chikage currently resided in Singapore, the girlfriend and soon to be wife of an accountant. Kaito was honestly happy for his mother. He felt that it had been too many years since she had allowed herself to fall in love once more since his father's death, and he knew Touichi would only wish for his loved ones' happiness, however they achieved it. That was just the kind of man Kuroba Touichi was.

As for Kaito, Nakamori Aoko had grown tired of waiting for her childhood friend to respond to her affections, and his fellow classmate Hakuba Saguru had wooed her during their early college years. The pair was now married, living in Hakuba's home, and working in the police forces. Kaito, much as he had wanted to respond to Aoko's feelings, was unable to because of the barrier Kaitou KID presented. There was no way she would accept him, not when he still wore KID's uniform, and he would not accept her, not when Pandora had still been elusive and Snake and his men had sought him out. He refused to place her in that sort of danger, and so had regretfully, but gently, pushed her away.

Kaito entered the fifth floor surgery ward, touching base with the circulating nurse, Kajiwara Rumiko, for directions. He was told he needed to scrub down, and handed her his pager and other personal items before heading to the locker room to change out of his suit and tie into scrubs. He then met with the scrub nurse, Maeda Okita, who dressed him in a sterile gown and gloves, and as he was being suited up, his usual anesthesiologist entered along with his team of assistants.

"Yo, Yamato-chan," Kaito greeted as his hair was tucked into a cap. "Amano-kun, Kisaragi-chan."

The other three that made up his customary surgery team replied with their own greetings before being suited up by Maeda. Kaito headed into the operating room to find several emergency room staffers clustered about the patient as they arranged the various machinery the patient was hooked up to. "What've we got?" he asked as his eyes zeroed in on the exposed body, noting the three bloodied holes that marred the otherwise healthy-looking male trunk. The man's face was mostly covered by the transparent strapped-on mask feeding him oxygen, but Kaito was too focused on the upcoming procedure to really process the man's facial features. The emergency room doctor began briefing him in rapid, terse phrases.

"Bullet wounds. Two in thoracic, one in abdominal. Dextral pneumothorax. Sinistral gastrointestinal perforation. Bullets extracted. Upper bullet exited via dextral scapula, so there are complications." The doctor filling him in glanced up, her face hidden behind a facemask, sweat dotting her brow. "He's in a delicate stage, already on his second pint of blood, but he should be stable. You'll need to stitch the perforation as well. I've been told all of our CTs and GIs are in other ORs."

Kaito nodded as his team quickly began to set up and take over, having filtered in during his briefing and catching all the necessary details. Yamato Shizuka, his anesthesiologist, double-checked the patient's information, flipping through the charts detailing the medications he had been given before adding a general anesthetic to the patient's intravenous drip. Maeda wheeled in the Mayo Stand, which was covered in an array of glinting stainless steel tools he would need for the surgery. Amano Katsuo, one of his two technicians, stood opposite Kaito on the other side of the operating table while Kisaragi Hanako stood at his side next to the Mayo Stand, ready to grab the appropriate instrument for the surgeon's use.

"All right," he said succinctly, eying the life support machinery that was keeping the patient alive by breathing for him, "Procedure as follows: First, we need to…"

* * *

Four and a half grueling hours later, Kaito and his team exited the operating room. They doffed their sterile gowns and gloves, which were now spattered with blood and other bodily fluids. They had repaired the patient's punctured and collapsed right lung and sewn up his large intestine after cleaning the wound of any fecal matter that had come from the perforated section of his digestive tract. The team had also reconstructed the patient's right scapula together with a surgical-grade steel plate and several screws, the bullet having fractured the bone into several separate pieces.

"Good job, all of you," Kaito said tiredly as he washed his hands in the sink.

Kisaragi chuckled wearily. "That one was a doozy wasn't it?" she asked rhetorically, and Amano agreed with a snort.

"He certainly has an interesting medical history," Yamato said as she stretched her back.

"How so?" Amano asked as the four trooped back to circulation to retrieve their belongings.

The anesthesiologist frowned. "He had some really interesting reactions to certain drugs. It's strange, because most people do not normally have those types of reactions, but…" Kaito hummed absently. The patient had been wheeled out into the recovery room, where he would later be transferred to the intensive care unit for his rather long and painful recovery. The surgeon made a mental note to check up on his emergency patient tomorrow, just to make sure there were no complications that arose as a result of the surgery.

The clock at the operating room circulation desk proclaimed the time to be seven forty-three in the evening as he collected his pager, mobile phone, wallet, and keys. He bid his team good night and returned to the locker room to change out of his surgical scrubs. Then he left the hospital, hopping in his well-used sedan. He made a stop at White Duck to purchase a bento before he made it home and sank onto the couch in his living room. He lay there for a moment with his eyes closed, reveling in the silence after the hustle and bustle of the hospital and office. It occurred to him just then that he never took a look at the emergency patient's identification papers, having only been focused on keeping the man alive and repairing the damage done to his body.

Beika General Hospital had actually not been his first choice to work, purely based on location—it was a thirty minute drive without traffic or a forty-five minute ride by train. Their residency program was one of the best in the nation for cardiothoracic surgery, which was why he had been willing to make the commute. Once he had completed his residency, he followed up with a fellowship, again at Beika General, before they offered him a position in their staff. Kaito, as one of the brightest minds in his field, had had his pick of hospitals to work for. In the end he had gone with Beika General, not only because of his familiarity with the staff, but also because they had programs in place that worked in conjunction with Touto University's medical school in research.

The ability to research was a huge draw for the imaginative man. Because he no longer donned the white cape and monocle of Kaitou KID, Kaito had needed another creative outlet, and so had turned that ingenuity towards helping people. He designed new instruments, developed new procedures, and invented better devices. Already he had patented a new design for device that could be used to clear coronary thrombosis without the need for open-heart surgery if a patient was in the high risk category of sustaining myocardial infarction—or in layman's terms, cleaning out plaque-blocked arteries which led to a patient having a heart attack.

Kaito sat up and ate his dinner without gusto, too tired to really appreciate the food. Emergency procedures always left him more worn out than scheduled ones. At least with those, he had time to mentally prepare himself. He cleaned up and took a shower before tumbling into bed. He was asleep the moment his head hit the pillow.

Morning came too early for his taste, and he rose and dressed, brewing himself a cup of tea as he waited for his toast. He nibbled on the warm, crusty bread on the way to work, navigating the morning commuter traffic with his thermos of tea in the cup holder. By eight thirty he was in his office seeing his first appointment of the day. Today was only a half day of office time, as he was scheduled to visit Touto University to guest lecture before returning for one relatively simple operating procedure.

His morning passed in a blur of consultations and post-op follow-ups, and lunch sneaked up on him—literally, in this case. Kaito sighed as he rubbed his temples, trying to stave off the tension headache he could feel building behind his eyeballs.

"Kuroba-sensei!"

"Gah!" The doctor jumped, clutching his chest as the office assistant Yoshida Ayumi blinked at him. "Yoshida-san! You scared me!" he scolded gently.

The assistant frowned. "I've only tried to get your attention three times before I yelled," she explained, a strange combination of contrite and defiant. In her hands she held two boxes of bento. "Hungry?" There was a hopeful blush on her face, and Kaito mentally winced. He had tried not to encourage her budding affections, but it seemed his efforts had failed. Not only was he ten years her senior, he simply didn't feel that way for the young woman.

"Sorry, Yoshida-san," he said apologetically as he glanced at his watch and cringed. "I have to get going or I'll be late for my lecture at Touto." He slid his jacket on, shuffling a few papers into his briefcase along with a laptop. "Thanks, but I'll have to pick up something along the way," he commented as he passed her on the way to the door. "Would you be sure to file Maikawa-san's paperwork so that her father can pick up her prescription today? Thanks."

Kaito hurried out the door. He felt ridiculous, fleeing his own office as he had. Despite his gentle but subtle rebuffs, Yoshida Ayumi had been rather persistent in pursuing his affections. It was not that she was a terrible person—on the contrary, she was sweet, affable, and caring. But even after so many years, Kaito's heart still longed for Aoko's in spite of his attempts to date other women. _Laughable, really,_ he scoffed at himself, _that the great Kaitou KID, with his legions of fans, cannot find himself a girlfriend because he's too hung up on the one he could not have._

He hopped into his car, turning on the radio. The bouncy beats of Kuraki Mai's _Revive_ filled the cabin, and he hummed along as he made his way to his alma mater. Two hours later, after a lecture to fourth-year medical students on advanced heart failure and transplants, he was changed into scrubs and hands-deep into the chest cavity of another patient, who required a lobectomy. He lifted the cancerous lobe out of the child's open ribcage and deposited the partial organ in a stainless steel bin provided by Kisaragi. Once he had double- and triple-checked that the surrounding tissues failed to show for signs of malignancy, he began the process of putting the patient back together.

Two hours later, the seven-year-old girl was wheeled off into recovery, and Kaito sighed deeply as he slumped on a chair in the hospital's cafeteria, a cup of terrible coffee in his hand. "I hope my day is over," he grumbled, though this week was his on-call week. If there were any emergency procedures required, he as the on-call cardiothoracic surgeon was required to show up at the hospital regardless of the hour of night, ready to save a life on the operating table. Thankfully it was Thursday, and he only had two more days until his on-call duties were over for another six weeks. He rotated on-call duties between the six other cardiothoracic surgeons employed at Beika General, and two of them worked in the same consultation office as he did.

"Rough day?" Kaito glanced up to find his officemate and surgeon, Isuzu Hikari, watching him with a weary smile of her own.

The surgeon chuckled. "You could say that. My lecture today ran over because the students got quite enthusiastic during Q&A, so I was nearly late for ops." Kaito grinned. "But I like that, because I know then that they at least are keen on wanting to learn more about the topic."

"Ah, the youthful naïveté of being a med student," she bemoaned sagely. "We were so stupid back then."

"Speak for yourself," Kaito joked back. "You were always the one that instigated parties and got shitfaced at Hiromu's apartment."

Isuzu Hikari was a classmate of his who was two years his senior. She had not been accepted immediately into Touto's medical program immediate upon graduating from high school, and had applied twice more before her acceptance. She worked as a cardiovascular surgeon specialist, and together with another classmate, Morikubo Kousuke, who specialized in thoracic surgery, the trio ran an office for consultations and evaluations regarding required surgeries affecting the heart and lungs.

"Oi!" she barked indignantly, "I was the one who organized them, but you were always the life of the party!"

The pair laughed, recalling their student experiences. "Yeah," Kaito agreed. "Those days were fun." He finished the last dregs of his overly burnt drink and stood, checking his watch. It read five thirty-seven. "Time for me to make the rounds before I head out for the night. You should head home soon too." A sly grin curled his lips. "Yonaga-san's probably waiting for you…" he said with a suggestive wiggle of his eyebrows.

"Shut it," Isuzu grumbled, slapping him on the arm and blushing while Kaito laughed aloud. "Satoshi and I—"

"Oh come on!" Kaito interrupted, "Everyone knows you and your dermatologist boyfriend are practically married already. I'm just amazed he hasn't popped the question yet—it's been three years!"

She flushed a deeper red. "We've talked…"

Kaito nudged her gently. "Go home to your beloved," he murmured softly. "You look dead on your feet yourself, and Yonaga-san'll take care of you, like he always has." He smiled, though if one looked carefully in his eyes, they would see a broken, jagged quality to it that Poker Face failed to hide. There was no need, after all, to have a perfect Poker Face when you no longer lived your life on a stage. The friends said their goodbyes and split, Kaito headed for the pediatric intensive care ward, where all of his patients resided after invasive surgery. He made a round through his patients, checking on them and discussing any problems or questions their parents had regarding the surgery or post-operation care, and entertaining the children with little shows of magic and sleight of hand tricks. At last he came to the final patient, the one who he had performed the emergency procedure on. He had needed to travel to the adult intensive care ward, and here he was not as familiar with the staff as he was in the pediatric ward. He flipped through the patient's files at the nurse circulation desk, freezing upon seeing the name printed across the page.

 _Kudou Shinichi._

Kaito was no stranger to bullet wounds—indeed, Beika General was where the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department sent their wounded because of the headquarters' proximity to the hospital, and the surgeon had treated his fair share of officers. But to have operated on Kudou…

His eyes strayed to the closed door of the patient in Room 563, in which the Division One Homicide Unit Inspector rested. He pulled his gaze back to the clipboard, eyes taking in the readings and brain absently processing the information and finding nothing out of the ordinary. Just—aside from the fact that the patient was _Kudou Shinichi_.

The doctor considered his impromptu patient as he slid the clipboard back into its slot at the circulation desk. The former phantom thief had not encountered his archrival since the last time he had donned the iconic Kaitou KID costume. As far as he could tell from the papers, the man was happily married to Mouri Ran—now Kudou Ran, his childhood sweetheart, after he had taken down the Black Organization and returned to his true form after four years of being Edogawa Conan with the help of Haibara Ai, formerly Miyano Shiho and codenamed Sherry within said syndicate, along with members from the FBI, CIA, INTERPOL, and TMPD. Haibara was the one who had created the drug that had shrunk him from sixteen to six, and after several years she had finally formulated a permanent antidote to the poison. Kaito had been extremely curious about it, for chemistry had always been a favorite subject of his in school, and he built on that love upon gaining entrance into Touto University by taking organic chemistry classes.

His friends in high school had wondered why he had changed his goal in life from being a world famous magician to becoming a cardiothoracic surgeon. Kaito had replied that while performing magic was fun, saving a life was a miracle that no magic of his could ever replicate, and he thought of his father as the words left his mouth. Privately he wondered if the witch Koizumi Akako had the ability to raise the dead, then decided it was not a train of thought worth pursuing.

Kaito paused before the closed door that separated him from his rival, took a deep breath, and knocked. He was not expecting the hoarse, "Enter," that weakly floated through the wood. Indeed he had expected his patient to be asleep.

 _He doesn't know you and he can't arrest you—at least not in his current state,_ he comforted himself. He inhaled deeply, exhaled, and opened the door. "Good evening, Kudou-keibu," he greeted cheerfully, strolling in nonchalantly and looking all for the world like he was an ordinary doctor. Which he was. And was not. The bed with his patient greeted him, along with the form of Kudou Ran sleeping in the visitor's chair beside him. Kaito headed for the clipboard placed at the foot of the bed, scanning through the nurse's notes and nodding to himself. "My name's Kuroba Kaito," he introduced himself softly so that he would not wake the worried woman. "I was the one who performed your operation. How do you feel?"

"Like I've been shot," came the croaked reply. "Multiple times." It seemed he still retained that dry sense of humor, even after all these years.

Kaito chuckled sardonically. "Can't argue with you there," he answered, setting the clipboard back in its holster. His eyes finally met those of his patient. Kudou had matured, the roundedness of his boyish features lengthened into that of a grown man's, though his complexion was undeniably pale. The blue eyes, normally sharp and intent and bright with frightening intelligence, were now hazy with pain and clouded from painkillers and weariness. His free left hand, stuck with the intravenous needle, gently clasped that of his sleeping wife's. The thin, clear nasal cannula ran from his nose to a small tank behind his bed, feeding him oxygen. Dressed in the hospital's patient garb and nestled in the beige blankets and white sheets, Kudou Shinichi looked nothing like the determined, confident Inspector who was the pride of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. In this setting of sterile white, he looked frail and breakable. "Anything you'd like to ask me regarding the procedure, Kudou-keibu?" He would keep to titles—if he kept strictly professional, there was a lesser chance of the detective pinning him down as Kaitou KID.

"What were my injuries?" he whispered.

"You had a collapsed right lung, a penetrated large intestine, and a broken right shoulder blade from three bullets, as well as a total of two pints of blood. Thankfully they all exited your body, so there was no need to fish them out. I had to stitch up the tissues in your lung and intestine, as well as place a metal plate on your shoulder blade so that it heals properly," Kaito explained in non-medical terminology. He watched as Kudou glanced at his right arm, which was set in a sling and bound tightly to his bandaged torso.

"It'll be a bitch to get back in shape," the inspector grumbled.

Kaito chuckled. "Considering the stories I've heard of you from the other officers I've operated on, you'll be back to running around in no time, I'm sure. Anything else?"

Kudou's eyes locked onto his, and the former gentleman thief felt some primal instinct that raised his metaphorical hackles. "How long will I be here?"

The surgeon forced his Poker Face to relay a relaxed attitude. "You'll be here for at least a week, if not more, for observation. I suggest once you are discharged from the hospital to rest—which means no chasing after the baddies for a while, Kudou-keibu." He stepped towards the door, anxious to leave the detective's presence.

The detective smiled sardonically, his eyes sliding shut. "And what of retired baddies?" he responded, eyes opening and pinning Kaito in his position by the door, "Kaitou KID?"

Kaito's hand tightened almost imperceptibly on the door's handle. "Kaitou KID?" he asked with a bewildered chortle. _Don't panic._ "No one's seen him in years, Kudou-keibu."

"And yet he's standing before me, still dressed in white," was the detective's rejoinder.

The doctor reflexively glanced down, realizing that he was indeed wearing his white coat, his name stitched in black thread on the breast pocket. "All of us doctors wear a white coat around the hospital, Kudou-keibu," he replied neutrally, meeting the inspector's eyes.

"But you're the only one with a face close enough to mine to pass off as me without a mask," Kudou said with a tired, fond smile. "Long time no see, KID-san."

 _I've been found out…_ Kaito allowed KID's grin to grace his expression. "I haven't been called that in a long time," he said quietly, stepping away from the door to stand at his former rival's bedside.

Kudou twisted his head to better see the former thief. "You never returned your last heist target."

"It needed to be destroyed," was Kaito's brief answer. "Like you, I had a syndicate to expose."

The detective huffed. "How long had you known I was Conan?"

"I realized the truth after the Magic Lover's Murder Case. There were just enough clues there, along with my own independent observations to conclude that you were Kudou Shinichi, shrunken into the form of Edogawa Conan. When you returned as yourself, I was itching to get my hands on a sample of the drug used, simply because I was curious. I would not ever use it on someone, but the chemistry and the biological interactions of such a drug... it intrigued me." Kaito shrugged. "But I would rather not pursue anything that resembles a form of immortality. Pandora was more than enough."

"Pandora?" There was intense curiosity in that one word.

Kaito snapped out of his banter with his former rival, becoming the doctor once more. "You should be resting, Kudou-keibu, and such discussion is not conducive to recuperating." The surgeon retreated towards the door. "I wish you a speedy recovery, Kudou-keibu."

"Wait!" the inspector raspingly called, but Kaito had already fled, unnerved by how easily the detective had unmasked him even after all these years.

* * *

Kaito failed to check up on the convalescing detective in the weeks after, hearing through the grapevine that Kudou had been discharged from the hospital after sixteen days. Life resumed for the surgeon: he consulted, checked up on, and performed procedures on his patients, and every so often guest lectured. When he was not in the hospital or his office, he could often be found in a laboratory on Touto University's campus, tinkering on something or another, the sizes of which meant these were meant for children.

A week after Kudou's release, the doctor was ensconced in the lab building an artificial aorta with porcine cells around a cast of an average six year old's aorta. He peered down the microscope, checking the rate of mitosis of the cells and the way in which they grew around the cast, making notes to himself in his normal indecipherable handwriting—which was in actuality a code that only he understood. He had developed it in high school, after his classmate Hakuba Saguru, a detective from London who had suspected that he was Kaitou KID, acquired a penchant for reading his notes over his shoulders. It was late and he was the only one in the lab, but old habits die hard.

"So this is where you hide," said a voice from the doorway, and Kaito jumped, toppling his stool and throwing his papers in disarray in the process.

The retired magician yelped as he spun, one hand clutching his chest and the other the lab countertop edge at the small of his back, breathing heavily amidst the fluttering sheets. He was met with an amused Kudou Shinichi in an electric wheelchair, a smirk painted on his face. His right arm was still in a sling and his left rested on the lever that moved the chair. He had a healthy glow to his complexion, and Kaito was glad to see the brightness of his eyes as opposed to the dull sheen due to medication.

"Don't scare me like that!" he scolded, bending down to right his stool and kneeling to collect his scattered notes.

Kudou laughed contritely. "My bad," he apologized as he wheeled further into the room. "I just couldn't resist."

Kaito sighed as he shuffled the disorganized stack of papers and set them down, folding his arms across his chest as he leaned against the counter. "So what brings you to my humble haunting place, Meitantei?" he asked, sliding easily into the banter he and Kudou shared long ago as detective and thief.

"What? I can't stop to say hello to an old friend?" Kudou asked with a smirk.

The former phantom thief snorted. "I doubt 'friends' try to literally knock each other out via chemical warfare or make a habit of falling from airships and buildings," Kaito retorted. He cut a sharp stare at the grinning detective. "Or resort to blackmailing to fake someone else's death while being threatened by assassins armed with guns and explosives."

"Touché," the wheelchair-bound detective acceded with a nod, glancing over his shoulder.

"How are you feeling?" the former thief asked, unable to help his doctor tendencies though he noted the nervous gesture.

Kudou grimaced. "Sore, but getting better. At least I'm no longer on opioids."

Kaito frowned, having caught the inspector's fleeting expression of discomfort. "So your pain is manageable now?"

"Still the same, I see." The detective chuckled, though he quickly halted, as the action pulled at the healing tissue. "No one gets hurt—or in your current situation, do your best to save everyone on your watch, ne?"

"You're avoiding the question," Kaito said, displeased. The surgeon tapped a finger against his elbow in irritation. "Ne, you wouldn't happen to be running away from something now, would you, Meitantei? Or should I say, _someone_?" At Kudou's panicked expression, he knew he had hit the jackpot. "Ara?" he purred with a wicked gleam in his eyes, "Does your wife know you've sneaked out of the house, considering I _know_ you were put on two weeks of bed rest after your discharge?"

The detective scowled at him. "You're evil," he griped.

Kaito snorted. "You're one to talk," grumbled, turning back to the counter and picking through several bottles neatly lined up against the wall. He extracted one and shook out a white tablet, capping the container and replacing it, then filled a clean glass beaker with water from the sink. "You kicked soccer balls fast enough to dent metal at my _head_." He held out his hand containing the pill. "440 milligrams of naproxen, better known as Naixan. It shouldn't interact with the residual hydrocodone still in your system, and I don't think it'll react to the apoptoxin poison or its antidote that's still floating around in your blood."

Kudou gaped. "You took my blood?!"

"Calm down," murmured Kaito, "I only used it to check for any medicinal reactions, and I made sure to follow up with the nurses and pharmacists without telling them about that particular situation." He paused, as if realizing something. "You _do_ know you cannot ever be a blood donor, right? You'd kill the recipient." His former patient chuckled weakly in response and accepted the pill, popping it in his mouth before swallowing it with the proffered measuring instrument roughly 250 mL full of water. "So why are you here again?" he asked after he dumped the water and washed the beaker before turning to put his papers back in order. "And I don't want some bullshit about old friends."

"What was Pandora?" the inspector asked, bold and to the point.

The retired gentleman thief froze, and he chortled to himself. "I should have known you wouldn't give that up," he muttered under his breath. Kaito sat himself on the stool and swiveled to face the detective. "Pandora was a doublet, a gem within a gem, that when held to the light of the full moon, would glow a bloody red, and when viewed under both the full moon and the Volley Comet, would shed tears of immortality." Kudou's shell-shocked expression was priceless, and Kaito committed it to memory. "I found it before the Organization did, and destroyed it so that they could and would die like normal people." He flashed the detective a rueful smile. "It's the legacy of Kaitou KID that will never be known to the wider world."

"But why bother?" persisted the inspector. "What was Pandora to you?"

Kaito ducked his head, suddenly wishing he had the brim of the trusty top hat to hide behind. "Pandora… was the reason Oyaji was murdered." The sentence hung between them, and Kaito made no effort to soften the statement.

"I hadn't realized…" Kudou murmured at length, softly and apologetically.

The surgeon scoffed. "You wouldn't have known because I never told you. Oyaji's killers are behind bars now, so there's no use worrying over it."

"But still—" the detective began, but he was interrupted.

"Shinichi? Shinichi!" Kaito nearly lost it at Kudou's utterly panicked expression at hearing the voice of his wife, Kudou Ran. "Shinichi, I know you're here somewhere!"

"Ah shit…" The detective swore before he groaned miserably. "How did she find me here?"

The doctor laughed. "Did it ever occur to you that she might have just used the GPS tracking on your phone since you have a tendency to disappear _like an errant child_?"

"Bastard," Kudou growled at the giggling retired thief, though he smiled at the sight. It honestly was a relief to find KID again, to know that he had not died after his disappearance fourteen years ago.

The sound of footsteps approached, and Ran appeared in the laboratory doorway. "Mou, Shinichi," she scolded. "Why do you always disappear on me like that?"

"Sorry, Ran," he said contritely, "but I've rediscovered another _childhood friend_ of mine."

Kaito almost smirked at the emphasis in his words. _Childhood indeed, Tantei-kun._

"Eh? Really?" Ran asked curiously. Her eyes lifted and she started upon seeing Kaito. "He looks just like you…"

"Yup," he agreed. "This is Kuroba Kaito, the surgeon who operated on me. I'd lost touch with him years ago, and by happenstance, he happened to be one of my doctors. I owe him my life." Kaito heard the unspoken, _Multiple times at that._

Kaito bowed. "Pleased to meet you, Kudou-san," he said with a smile.

Ran smiled brightly. "Likewise, Kuroba-sensei," she replied with a bow of her own. "I'm very glad that Shinichi has found another friend. He doesn't have all that many, being the mystery addict that he is."

"I'm not that bad," the detective complained.

"Yes you are," Kaito and Ran said simultaneously. They blinked at each other, than giggled.

"Why do I have a bad feeling about this?" the detective muttered, watching as the two newly introduced people shared conspiratorial grins.

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Author's Note: This one came out fast despite its length… I mean, I wrote this in two days. This was a little further into the future, a glimpse into a world where they both survived and went their separate ways, only to be reunited by circumstance. I thought Kaito going the doctor's route was not out of character since it was deeply ingrained in him from his father to cherish all life, and what better way to do that than to save lives? I also thought Ayumi having a crush on Kaito was just too cute to pass up, though I feel bad for leaving Kaito high and dry with regards to his love life… I tend to screw Kaito over a lot, don't I…? Right… Naproxen in the States is known as Aleve. I hope you enjoyed it.

* * *

Completed: 12.07.2015


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